I recently stumbled across an interview with David Mitchell which opens with him declaring that the internet is as harmful to humans as nuclear weapons. Two things to note: first, this is a five-year-old video; second, he’s a comedian who often uses hyperbole to sharpen his point. But in this case, there was a sincerity to his tone that I found haunting.

We all know that at least some people want a change in the way the internet is presented and used — this is most evident in the emergence of the fediverse but the meteoric rise and sudden fall of the Gemini protocol a few years ago also exemplified the widespread desire for countercultural change. (I understand that some individuals will claim that Gemini remains popular, but those people, unfortunately, are delusional.)

To be clear, my own stance is that the internet is past the point of redemption — in the sense that it will never return to the whimsical, low-stakes state it had when I enjoyed it most: the late 90s. I recall, years ago on a podcast (.XPenguin), screaming the mantra “the internet is burnt” while gleefully talking about my new text-only website and lamenting that HTTP had been the victor over the far more sustainable Gopher protocol. In short, I theoretically support the counterculture. However, I’ve never believed that federation was the answer.

It’s also no secret that I’ve been changing the way I use the internet over the last few months — a topic I’ve touched on in many posts on this platform. But until I stumbled upon the idea that the internet might be as dangerous as weapons of mass destruction, I hadn’t for a moment felt that I was actually right in making those changes. Until that moment, I had assumed I was just experiencing a ‘mood’ about the state of social media and the worrying trend toward the financial extraction of every possible penny of value from the cattle-like users of the modern web. Basically, I worried that it wasn’t the internet that was burnt, but that I was burned out with regard to it.

One symptom of this shift has been my recent habit of turning the Wi-Fi off on my laptop a few days a week (only turning it on for a few seconds about twice a day to sync email.) There was a time — probably about five years ago (ironically, when David Mitchell gave the interview I referenced at the start of this post) — when the idea of extended periods of offline time would have felt almost terrifying. Now, though, I bask in the freedom it offers. It’s usually the time in my week when I feel the most productive — and oddly, it hasn’t made me use my computer less, but more, because I can write and draw without distractions bombarding me.

I think in a recent post I talked about notifications being a thorn in my proverbial side, but now that I’ve pondered the topic more deeply, I wonder if the internet in its modern form really is dangerous. Is it actually causing real harm?

TikTok (which I have never used but somehow, through cultural osmosis, seem to know far too much about,) appears to encourage shallow thinking while tying it to strong emotions. YouTube Shorts have identical problems but seems to target a slightly older demographic (at least, in my experience of them.)

Facebook seems to encourage echo chamber discussions — but at least it reminds people of their auntie’s birthday, so I suppose it’s only 99.999% bad.

Twitter (X as it’s now known, I’m told) seems to have become a hive of scum and villainy, now traditionally featuring lewd replies on heavily right-wing skewed content.

Instagram appears to be 70% subtle advertising for creators’ OnlyFans accounts or dicey vitamin supplements.

Reddit has for a long time now been a place where people insult the intelligence of others — though now people also use it like a microblog, posting pictures of recent purchases and giving unsolicited opinions about politics on every Star Trek post they see.

These seem to be the main faces of the internet for most people — and between them, they’ve lowered attention spans, destroyed critical thinking, and eroded traditional morality (I accept that depending on your personal stance, you may think that last one is a good thing — I’m here to rant, not judge.) They’ve changed the winds of social evolution and made the person with the most followers or likes the one whose message is most virally propagated. For better or worse, the internet has affected the world outside of the internet.

There was a time when communities, geographical regions, and friendship groups developed their own jokes, thematic agreements, and — dare I say — culture. Now, though, the internet’s digital colonisation has disallowed disagreement, dictated what’s funny and what’s problematic, despite regional, historical, or personal differences.

The problem is rooted in whether or not you think this is a problem. You see, to many people, this homogenisation of ideas is good because it allows easier connection with strangers, a universal memetic mode of communication, and an equalisation of moral norms. And I partly agree with that.

There are also a lot of people who see everything in the last paragraph as the erosion of artistic freedom, personal politics, and individual identity. They see it as the defence of cancel culture and the hive-mind force of agenda-driven change. And I partly agree with that too.

You see, I don’t believe that I’m smart enough to navigate the internet anymore. I fear sharing opinions — which feels quite strange given that I don’t actually think I hold any particularly problematic stances. I feel like I have no idea how people will interpret what I say — but I’m sure they’ll do so in the least charitable way possible, twisting my words to make them seem as problematic as possible. Heck, I almost didn’t post this very article because I worried I’d said something that would lead to cancellation — and all I’m doing here is saying that I think the internet is problematic.

Also, I’m not on social media, which makes me wonder if I’m actually cancellable. (My posts aren’t even mirrored on Bluesky anymore, aside from my poorly drawn comic art, which is posted on Niceferatu.net.)

However, I’m aware that because I’m rambly and not very politically in-tune with the zeitgeist, I’m always having to think about what I post here. Despite having almost no internet presence outside of this very site, I worry about being taken out of context or interpreted uncharitably. And the very fact that I have this concern — despite being mostly reasonable, not making strong political statements, and being blissfully unaware of trends — shows how deeply rooted my fear of the internet has become.

The internet is no longer whimsical and lighthearted; it’s now a brutal and dark forest where rodents of unusual size and sudden eruptions of flames could strike at any moment. At some point, I began to fear the internet and the strangers who live there — which I am forced to admit, to me, proves that everything I’ve said in this post is at least true, for me.

I miss the internet of old and the joy it held in every strange little homepage I stumbled across. No matter how small the small-web gets, and no matter how federated the fediverse becomes, the internet is not the place it once was. It all became too real — and too harsh.

So why do I keep posting on this site? That’s a reasonable question, and I don’t have an answer. I think it’s because I like to write, and writing sorts out my thoughts. I don’t know what else to tell you — maybe it’s a habit I learned back when my ISP gave me “webspace for a homepage of my own!” Or maybe it’s the death rattle of a disillusioned soul screaming for someone to agree and make it all feel slightly better.